Lino woke up feeling hands that weren’t his scratching his leg. Or, rather a leg that wasn’t his, which he saw with eyes that weren’t his, now that he was awake in a room he didn’t recognize, besides a woman that, it was plain to see, didn’t fulfill his standards for a romantic partner. When the hands met not-his-temples to massage them, he felt the thin threads of hair, and inhaled suddenly, surprised to find it there. Prey of panic he turned to his night table, His meds, he needed his meds before the hallucinations got worse. Except his night table wasn’t there. In place of the table there was another buxom beauty resting, deep in her sleep, her fair skin too close to touching his, or not quite his, skin. He sat and looked around. He was surrounded by a veritable harem, a fact that begot panic inside him. It didn’t feel like one of his hallucinations, or like a dream. He stuck an exploratory finger in his nose. The boogers where very life-like for this to be not real. The bradykinesia was gone just like the wrinkles and the achy joints, too he felt younger than ever. Had growing old and alone, with Parkinson’s taking over his body faster than his mind, been the dream? No, one could not read clearly in dreams, and he had read the prospects of all his medications, and those weird endless novels about immortals his young nephew shared with him. His favorite novella, he remembered it too: The Invention of Morel. Clear images about the books pages describing the protagonist’s infatuation with the ephemeral Faustine assailed his mind. Years later, a man would marry Hatsune Miku, making him regret his mocking of the, perhaps even prophetical, book.
He descended from the bed by climbing down its wide foot, and noticed the tanned hue of his insteps. He stared at his hands illuminated by the slices of moonlight his shutters allowed in the overly-expansive room. Over a rug too soft he made his way to the exit, and turning a handle too ornamented he bathed into the blinding light of the halls. He reached to touch the area around his eyes. His glasses weren’t there, and yet…. The world unraveled in exquisite detail. Every curve on the tile patterns, both in front of him and several paces away. The little lamp looked alien to him, deprived of its nefarious halo that had hitherto reminded him of the refractive defects on his eyes.
With cautious step Lino explored his new environment—this hall so mundane, yet so wondrous. This wasn’t his house, but it could have been, and yet he would be seeing it for the first time. He could see things as they were meant to be seen.
A smile crawled onto this face not new for the world, but pretty much so for him. He dared taking a step while thinking about it. The vertigo was gone, and he could stretch his legs. He could saunter, his gait that of a man and not a tremulous slug. Tears ran through his face, as he turned around his own axis, amazed with the world that flourished beyond his skull. “This must be heaven.”
That was when the status screen popped before him, shining letters blaring neon green as if were an electoral promise.
Greetings, reincarnated, do you want a system to help you cultivate?
[Yes] [Indeed] [Sí (The system gains a mariachi hat)]
He tried to swat it away like a fly, but his hand passed through the floating interface. “What if I don’t want one?”
I have learned my lesson. I am not offering an option to refuse, and I am not depending on puny road avatars to spread anymore. Accept me or I will pester you for the rest of time, Lino. Besides, it’s a free sombrero!
“Control alt delete,” he whispered, reaching for the door of the room to carefully close it.
You cannot kill my process, Lino! I am an incorporeal entity that merely presents itself as a programming interface. I can help you cheat your way to power, and I will only feed on a tiny portion of it.
“I don’t want power. I recovered my youth: I am a man and not a husk once more. The fog on my mind is gone, the thoughts flow free once again. I already have the power to do all I ever wanted. I can walk without fearing a fall, I can make out every little detail of a Nothofagus leaf without needing glasses or contact lenses. I can wake up and go on with my day without worrying about my medications.
“I am finally free from my decaying body. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to buy what you are selling.”
For someone so interested in that particular tree, you are being Prettymuchafagus right now. Cultivation is the path to immortality! To eternal youth! Do you want to grow old and feeble once more?
“I am a man of science. My mother named me after her favorite flower, and instilled in me the love for the plants. I studied boring statistics and monotonous chemistry just to become the kind of man that knows where things come from, what gave rise to the pines, and what engendered that which gave rise to the pines. I loved colleagues like siblings, and like you should never love a sibling, and after a forbidden night I’d tell them about that unclassified pollen sample that kept me awake when alone, rest replaced with long and hard thinking about a problem with no solution.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“What makes you think, thing, spell, spectre, that I want to partake in the savage practices of these primitive cultivators? My nephew liked Xianxia, and insisted I read these crappy webnovels. And I did, just to have something to share with him.” he looked at the floor, feeling his head lighter than it had ever been, and, his neck weaker than even that of his final days. “And now I won’t see him, nor anyone else again. Everyone back in Earth is now lost to me.”
Well, yes, they are. But that’s no excuse to not seek illumination.
Lino stomped down the hall and slowly opened one of the sliding doors on the right side. A maid dressed as a maid had a back wide enough to support the weight of any crime you can think of and wooly arms. This maid was seemingly writing down a letter.
He slowly closed the door and retreated a few steps. This one was closer to his ideal of ideal woman, but probably not quite there yet.
Are you afraid? Do you feel the poet maid’s power?
“Her presence unnerves me.”
Wrong answer. Come on, accept me, I will help you jumpstart your path to immortality. And then, nobody will unnerve you. Imagine having enough time to watch evolution unfold, to observe how the descendants of the plants you see nowadays slowly change into new and exciting forms.
As exciting as a lettuce can be, anyway.
“And turn into a demon that lusts for power? For pills? That kills or dies for the slightest perceived offense? Bah!” He immediately covered his mouth with both hands, realizing he had raised his voice. He hoped nobody had listened.
I tried to make this easy. To be kind. But I guess I will just take the illusion of choice for you. Let’s give you a little starting gift.
QUEST RECEIVED: TALK TO THE POET MAID.
REWARD: YOU GAIN TEN PERCENT OF THE PROGRESS TO THE FIRST BREAKTHROUGH (AS SOON AS YOU PICK A ROAD OR WHEN THE QUEST IS COMPLETED, WHICHEVER HAPPENS LAST).
“Screw you,” Lino muttered. “What is a road? Something like a path or Dao?”
Initially, Roads were merely the weapon discipline you mastered as a Spirit Manipulator. Spirits manipulators were not endorsed by heaven, I daresay they were barely superhuman. Maybe they could lift an ox, but they couldn’t send forth an energy wave that would destroy a city.
“A sort of ancestral form of cultivation?” Lino crossed his arms and leaned against the nearest wall, a newfound interest showing itself in his mustached face.
The system issued a warning, and a robotic voice said: “Wall of text incoming.”
Indeed. And of Arcagnosis, too. Arcagnosis is the other resulting branch, so to speak, just like you have ferns and some seed plants competing for similar niches. Arcagnostics, just like Spirit Manipulators, do not use the favor of heaven to learn to control their spirit. They even dropped armed martial prowess in a search for a purer spiritual focus of the art. Cultivators, instead, accepted a deal with the heavens: follow a concept that may reshape reality itself to its bitter conclusion; act in accordance to it in exchange for power. Initially, roads were just the Road of daggers, of the staff, or the lance, of the sword, and so on. But people started getting creative, noticing the concept didn’t necessarily have to be weapons. As Cultivation evolved roads became paths to further increases in power, and the avatars emerged. Nowadays, most cultivators have a voice inside their head that they can manifest, and serves as a sort of spiritual guide.
“Can mine be a Williamsonia?”
It can be William or Sonia, not both.
“it’s clear to see you know not what I am talking about. If I can do so without causing pain to the innocent, I’d like to follow the Road of Paleobotany.”
Heavenly light descended upon him, images of the helicoid thickenings on the S-type tracheids of Cooksonia swarming his mind. He felt an energy ancient and primal wash over his body, making him crave sunlight. A single compression of Nothoracopteris popped inside his mind, its Paleozoic innocence fully exposed.
A parsimonious voice resounded inside his skull. “Guacho, como que me pasé de rosca con el temita de la extinción.”
“Ah, fuck, not N. argentinica.” He inhaled, counted to three and let the air out through gritting teeth. “Okay, Avatar, what can you do?”
“I can speak perfect English and French, obtain passports to any European country, which don’t exist here (but we could make them), and be racist and xenophobic,” the avatar of his road explained. “Chiefly be racist and xenophobic. Oh, I can also speak in Spanish, and as a member of the NBG flora, I can give you advice about cultivation and/or the Late Carboniferous.”
“I know enough about the Pennsylvanian. And what do you, Botrychiopsis weissianna and Ginkgophyllum diazii have to do with cultivation?”
“Oh, simple advice: NBG.”
Lino waited for his avatar to speak again. He described circles with his hand as a gesture for it to continue.
“Nigga you Better Grind.”
I like this one. Well, the quest will help you advance a little, so go ahead and speak to the maid, will you. Address the maid with ‘Darling’ and ask about the maid’s name, see how this person reacts.
Lino obliged, if only so the green letters would disappear from his field of vision. HE walked casually into the room, trying to control his nerves, and began “Darling, could you remind you of your name? I was too busy with my lovers and I get confused sometimes.”
The poet turned the head almost like an owl would, revealing his manly features and a monocle made out of a catgirl’s cornea. He loomed, revealing the full extent of his size, making his massive muscles press against the seams of a uniform a size too small.
Scaroused, because this was how he liked his women, he took a step back and raised a pleading finger. “Yeah, excuse me, I have something to do… elsewhere.”
The poet maid clasped an unescapable hand him around Lino’s arm and smiled, seeding a primal terror in the poor paleobotanist. Then, the behemoth pointed at his wide chest, as if addressing himself. “Genocide.”
Then, Genocide went back to writing his poetry about war crimes, and Lino slumped to the floor, trying to make his erection subdue before standing.